When the Rose Blooms Again
by The Girl With The Red Crayon
Summary: A wise person once said "The more things change, the more they stay the same." As paradoxical as the statement is, it has never more true than in the case of our poor, unfortunate girl. How it is blessedly wretched to end up in the orphanage once again, even if it has been planned all along. Wouldn't you agree?
1. Chapter 1

A wise person once said "The more things change, the more they stay the same." As paradoxical as the statement is, it has never more true than in the case of our poor, unfortunate girl. How unlucky it is to be in two nationally renowned tragedies, how fortunate to survive them both. How tragic it is to lose both parents and how excellent to receive their wealth. How heartbreaking it must be to lose not one nor two, but three families and how fufilling to grow to make another of your own. So wretchedly blessed is our poor girl. But it is blessedly wretched to end up in the orphanage once again, even if it has been planned all along. Wouldn't you agree?

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**20th October 1946**

The place had barely changed since the last ti- No, not the last time. Before that, even the day before that. The years had been kind to it. 'Almost as kind as they've been to me', Jennifer thought as she traced her hand over the faded door frame, peering into what used to be her old dorm room. To think that she had been taken in the orphanage as an almost nameless, lonely girl all those years ago only to return again. She sat experimentally on one of the bottom bunks, gradually putting her weight on the old frame. They were as sturdy as they had always been. In fact, the mattress had only taken sixteen years to lose its back aching stiffness. It was almost funny, in a way.

She let herself relax, lying back for a short moment and shutting her eyes. It felt like the old times, waning between the dorm room and her dreams while the other girls chattered around her. Jennifer could almost hear them now, their high voices whispering quietly in the back of her mind. They nattered and giggled, just utter nonsense that she neither could nor cared to decipher, just as they used to when she was a girl. Diana's superior drawl, Meg's posh, polysyballic tone, Eleanor's curt responses, Amanda's occasional squeak, Wendy's soft words as she crept down from her bunk to slip into Jennifer's...

The weight shifted on the bed and Jennifer's eyes shot open, her heart skipping for a moment. A familiar set of innocent, blue eyes bored down at her. She let out a relieved laugh, sitting up with a hand pressed against her chest.

"John, you shouldn't be sneaking around like that. You gave me such a fright."

The boy stood up and took a step back from his mother while he took a long glance around the room, expression getting more uneasy all the while. His voice was high, even for a boy of nine, and didn't betray the nervousness that his face gave away.

"When are we going home?"

She sighed, smiling softly and running her hands through his mousy hair before cupping his face. He always looked so serious, far more serious than a child his age had any right to. His father in expression, his mother in looks.

"This is our home now, dear. We'll be happy here, you, me and your father," she said reassuringly, but John didn't look any bit reassured as his mother stood up, smoothing down her skirt and starting towards the door.

"But mother, the other children don't like me."

That stopped Jennifer in her tracks, the sad tone in which he said it. She turned on her heel, crouching down at eye level to him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I know that the children were... less than wonderful in your old school, but you haven't even met the other children yet. They'll be here within the fortnight and you'll make so many new friends, you'll see."

His eyes weren't focused on her at all. His gaze wandered across each and every bunk, along the walls and out the windows. Everywhere, it seemed, but towards Jennifer. He shook his head slightly. Not in the way of someone who disagrees with an opinion, but the slight, absent-minded shake of disbelief.

"But Mother..."

Jennifer held back a tired sigh, opting instead to straighten up and ruffle his hair. That drew his attention back to her as he blinked for a moment before looking up at her. The poor boy seemed to get like this sometimes, looking off into the distance as if there was something of far more interest just beyond the horizon.

"Come along. There's still unpacking to be done. Let's get started on the kitchen and then we can fix you something to eat, okay?"

She started towards the door, the clicking of her shoes against the wooden floor the only sound. Jennifer had gotten half way down the hall before realising that her son hadn't made a move to follow her. She sighed and turned, about to slip back into the room as she called her son's name. He ran through the doorway at the same moment, nearly colliding into his mother and hurrying down the hall to take the stairs two steps at a time.

"John!"

Jennifer rolled her eyes, about to follow him when something caught her eye. A splash of brightness in the otherwise dreary room, something that most definitely wasn't there a few moments ago. She stepped into the room almost cautiously, on her guard for a reason she couldn't explain to herself. There, where she and John had been standing a few minutes prior. She knelt to pick it up, careful not to hurt herself upon it. Her heart skipped a beat, a moment of nostalgia and conflicting fondness and discomfort coming over her.

What would a single red rose be doing there?


	2. Chapter 2

Time flies when you'e having fun. Needless to say, the last decade or slow had dragged on at an agonizingly slow pace for Diana. She floated aimlessly around the orphanage for the twenty thousandth time, just thinking away to herself. There really wasn't much left to do without talking to the others, and there was only so much of them you could take after fifteen years. At this rate, she was longer dead than alive. How her life, her unfairly shortened life seemed like a simple blink of the eye while the same amount of time spent dead passed so damn slowly.  
Ironically enough, change was the difference, she decided. As wretched and positively tedious her life may have been, there was change. Some good, some bad, but change regardless. It's quite difficult to be bored when you constantly need to adapt. How does one adapt to when all they see and all they do is the exact same as yesterday and all the days before that?  
Which is damned near nothing. Diana looked out the window, a queen surveying her disappointing kingdom. Even those children that used to dare each other to sneak inside the decrepit building, both enthralled by the idea of ghosts and ghouls and the magnetic power of being forbidden to enter by parents and blissfully ignorant of how real the stories were, had long since disappeared. Nicholas and Xavier, the idiots, had gotten far too excited at the idea of new company. The plan was soft voices as they passed, the occasional brushing of a phantom limb against them, perhaps even a brief flicker of one of the smaller girls that would vanish before their eyes. Enough to draw their interest, enough to ensure that boredom wouldn't be an issue for a while.  
What wasn't on the agenda was knocking a young boy down a flight of stairs. Rumours of danger draw in children, bolden their fragile little egos with their supposed bravery as they strut within the bounds of safety. However, that illusion tends to shatter when three different bones do the same. That was the last they'd seen of them, all the little ones scattering and screaming as they left their broken friend behind.  
Oh, how he screamed. Not the worst Diana had ever heard, not by a long shot, but enough to grind on her nerves. She was close to doing something to shut the little fool up, but Wendy had gotten there first. The blonde was hunched beside him, whispering in his ear. Whatever lies she was telling were obviously working. He struggled to his feet, sobbing and wailing with his crooked leg almost buckling under his weight. Shaking his head with tears staining his cheeks, Wendy still whispered. More intently, quickly, the incessant 'you can' as the boy shook his head 'I can't'.  
Which, Diana remembered thinking, was the second of the boy's ridiculously stupid decisions. The princess always loathed having to deal with subjects capable of independent thought. The room seemed to chill slightly as the murmuring ceased and Wendy moved away from him, hovering just within his field of vision. Silence filled the air, a suspense tangible. She may have been a vile little shrew, but Wendy had always known how to properly use silence to terrorise. The even stopped his sobbing, so concerned by the lack of sound. The apparent realisation of his abandonment shocked him to silence, the poor, unsuspecting fool.  
It made the scream all the more effective. That had been a real scream, one to send a shiver to the very depths of you. That would be enough to terrify any child with a beating heart. Coupled with the ghostly image of a blonde little girl splattered with blood, her head tilted at a slight angle and twisted the wrong way, the broken boy seemed to reconsider his answer to Wendy's obviously reasonable request. And so he ran with a pathetic cry of his own. Well, hobbled. Out the door and beyond the gate, collapsing just at the first turn of the winding lane.  
That was enough to make any child's desire to explore the place disappear. Yet another thing that Wendy had ruined for all of them. No, nothing could exist within these walls with the high and mighty princess' approval. It wasn't enough to have them killed, she seemed to be adamant on having them all die a second time of boredom.  
Her train of thought was snapped apart as she heard a sound she hadn't heard in many a year, the roar of an engine making its way down the lane. A smirk played on her phantom lips, something close to excitement building in her chest. Well, it looked like there would finally be something mildly interesting to entertain them, at least for a short while. The dark car stopped outside the shut gate with the engine still growling underneath the bonnet. The driver opened their door, slipping out to open the rusty old gate.  
Forcing the rusty gates apart creakily, the figure stood still for a moment and let their gaze travel across the wide expanse of the former orphanage. As the stranger's gaze passed along Diana's window, she has hit with a twinge of realisation. Sure, the mousy brown hair caught in a tight bun could belong to anyone, the face could be any of a thousand faces from that distance. But that brooch, that gleaming red eye as sinister as its original owner, that was unmistakable.  
Well. This was bound to be interesting, to say the least .


End file.
